Starving Bad Habits

I've been on a new food program since February 18th to help reduce my Hashimoto's Thyroidism symptoms, following the program prescribed in Hashimoto's Protocol, written by Izabella Wentz. It's a 90-day program using food and nutrition to address root causes of thyroid disease with a focus on liver, adrenal, and gut health. The first 2 weeks called for eliminating foods that contain gluten, caffeine, processed sugars, and dairy. The first 3 days were pretty freaking painful. I normally avoided gluten but caffeine was the sunrise of my day.  The great news is that after a few short days, I had significantly less pain than normal in my body and joints. That alone could keep me on the program indefinitely. 

The second phase eliminates all grains. I don't ascribe to paleo diet assertions but in order to get my system clean, I am going without rice, oats, barley, etc., which sucks because I seriously love granola. But I did find a great alternative.  Lark Ellen Farms makes grain-free granola bites that taste delicious and uses dehydrated sprouts and nuts to make me feel like I'm eating granola. I discovered it at a local juicery which itself is a godsend, making healthy super easy and tasty.

This brings me to the two illuminations I had this week:

the importance of food satisfaction

the importance of eating for the right reason

Illumination #1: Food satisfaction is important. If God only cared about nutrition, he wouldn't have given us taste buds or the incredible variety of food sources. The smoothness of an avocado, the bite of lime, the succulence of a mango - these deserve to be enjoyed and celebrated! This food plan calls for a lot more veggies and fruit in my diet, so many that I chose to drink them. But the first few weeks, I was making the worst tasting smoothies and could barely choke them down. I realized I had to make food satisfaction a priority or I was never going to stick with these changes. I realized that I had come to rely heavily on commercially prepared and pre-packaged foods. This wasn't going to work in the new norm.

Illumination #2: Eat for the right reason. No surprise here but my "cheat" foods were always unhealthy, bringing me false comfort and extra pounds. Yet in the middle of one of my terrible craving moments, a light bulb - how unreasonable it is to use food to deal with stress. Kids are disrespectful, ungrateful, and yelling and my first thought is "I deserve Lindt chocolate!"  How does that make things better? Do Lindt dark chocolate truffles actually make my kids respectful? Uh, not.  Truth is, I'm just hurting myself, even hating myself a little by using food to gratify a longing it is not meant to address. So, still trying to find the cure for disrespectful fighting siblings but going to leave food out of the solution.

Here's a link to a great smoothie I discovered last nite. After installing flooring all day, my body was aching terribly. Not being able to take ibuprofen, I needed relief but wanted something that also satisfied my end of the day sweet tooth. I modified it a bit and dang it was SO good. 

Call me satisfied.